For an online shop, most paid search spend goes through campaigns that are assembled from your product data rather than from a keyword list. That makes the feed the account: titles, images, availability, price, identifiers and attributes determine which queries you appear for and how you are compared. An agency that talks about bidding strategy and never asks to see your feed is describing a job that mostly does not exist any more.
Feed quality decides matching and it is fixable
Product titles that lead with the attributes people search, complete and correct identifiers, accurate availability and price, good images and populated attributes all improve which queries you show for. This is unglamorous data work with a direct effect on revenue, and it is where a competent supplier will spend the first month rather than in the bidding interface.
Structure by margin, not by catalog tidiness
Grouping campaigns the way your merchandising team thinks about products often mixes high and low margin items, so the system optimises toward whatever converts most cheaply regardless of what it earns. Separate by margin band or by product role, feed the platform a value rather than a conversion count, and the account starts optimizing for profit.
Send back a value the system can use
Reporting revenue is better than reporting orders; reporting gross profit is better still, and reporting net of returns is better again for categories with high return rates. Each step changes what the automated bidding chases. Ask a prospective agency what value they would send and how they would get it, since this is where most of the available improvement sits.
Watch return rate and stock, not just return on ad spend
A campaign with excellent reported return on spend can be selling the product with the highest returns or the one about to go out of stock. Report by product and category with returns included, and connect the account to stock levels so advertising stops on what cannot be shipped. Both are routine causes of an account that looks efficient and loses money.
Questions people ask about e-commerce PPC management
How should e-commerce PPC be priced?
Percentage of spend is common in retail and rewards growing the budget. Flat fees suit stable catalogs. Whichever you use, agree who owns the feed work, because it is the largest and least glamorous part of the job and it is frequently outside the scope.
What is a good return on ad spend?
The only meaningful target comes from your own margin, return rate and how much of the sale you would have had anyway. A figure quoted without reference to those is a benchmark from someone else's business, and chasing it can mean walking away from profitable growth.
Should we bid on our own brand?
Usually yes, defensively and cheaply, and it should be reported separately. Mixed into the general account, brand traffic makes the whole thing look far more efficient than it is, which hides whether the non-brand campaigns are actually earning their budget.
Who should own the product feed?
Somebody named, with a daily check, whether that is your team or the agency. Feeds break quietly when a platform update changes a field, and the advertising simply stops working for the affected products without anything obvious appearing in the account.